Precision Redefined — The Angularestm Hybrid Hexapod® with 60-Degree Tip/Tilt

ALIO Industries patented Angulares™ Hybrid Hexapod® boasts an unprecedented 60-degree tip/tilt travel, the highest angular travel range available among 6-Degree-Of-Freedom (6-DOF) positioners on the market, maintaining the exceptional positioning performance synonymous with all ALIO Hybrid Hexapod systems. The Angulares™  is vital today because it addresses the precision and performance needs of modern high-tech industries, offering unmatched versatility and accuracy essential for cutting-edge applications.

The Angulares™ incorporates precision crossed roller bearing guides, optical incremental or absolute encoders on all axes, and offers both linear motor and servo ball screw drives. It features unlimited programmable tool center point locations, coordinate offsets, and zero backlash across all axes. These advancements enable unlimited XY travel, a Z travel range of 62 mm (extendable to 208 mm with other tripod models), 60 degrees of tip/tilt motion (+/- 30 degrees), continuous 360-degree Theta-Z rotation, and XYZ bidirectional repeatability of less than ±0.6 arc-seconds. It also supports velocities up to 100 mm/second for both XY and Z axes, with minimum incremental motions of less than 10 nanometers linear and 0.1 arc-seconds angular.

Bill Hennessey, President of ALIO Industries says, “The Hybrid Hexapod® design by ALIO Industries overcomes the limitations of traditional hexapods by combining the strengths of serial and parallel kinematic structures while eliminating their weaknesses. This design offers superior functional versatility, nanometer-level accuracy, repeatability, and exceptional 6-DOF trajectories, surpassing the capabilities of conventional hexapods and stacked stage configurations.”

While standard hexapods are adequate for applications requiring micron-level motion tolerances, they fall short for nanometer-level precision. This shortfall arises from inherent performance limitations in conventional hexapods, which operate within 3-dimensional space with errors in all six DOF. Traditional performance data typically addresses only one degree of freedom, neglecting errors in other degrees of freedom, particularly in flatness and straightness—critical for nanometer-level precision. Hexapods’ best flatness and straightness still lag by over two orders of magnitude (two decimal points) for basic XY motion.

Hexapods’ precision is influenced by the errors in all six links and joints. They excel in Z-axis movements, where all links perform identical motions at the same relative angles. However, X, Y, pitch, yaw, or roll motions degrade precision and geometric path performance because the links move differently. Errors are more pronounced in conventional hexapods with non-precision joints, bearings, and motion controllers that lack forward and inverse kinematics equations.

The Hybrid Hexapod®’s unique design features a parallel kinematic tripod for Z-plane and tip/tilt motion, integrated with a monolithic serial kinematic stage for XY planar motion. A rotary stage at the tripod’s top or bottom provides continuous 360-degree (Theta-Z) rotation. This hybrid design allows individual axes to be customized for XY travel ranges from millimeters to virtually unlimited distances while maintaining nanometer-level precision. Advanced forward and inverse controller kinematics enable an unlimited number of programmable tool center point locations, delivering unmatched path precision and performance.

The Angulares™ Hybrid Hexapod®’s 60-degree tip/tilt travel is ideal for applications in aspheric and freeform optical metrology, silicon photonics packaging and probing, laser micromachining on non-planar substrates, wafer metrology, camera module alignment and assembly, sensor/image stabilization testing, and optical element and fiber alignment.